Montane Lakeland 50 2013 - getting to the start

Way back in September we entered the Lakeland 50; a 50 mile jog in the English Lake District from Dalemain near Ullswater to Coniston. It is open to runners and walkers, with the winner coming in somewhere around 8 hours and the last competitors completing the event just within the 24 hour cut-off. This generous cut-off time, and the fact that it is run in conjunction with the Lakeland 100 (almost a complete loop around the Lake District, 100 miles long) make it seem less daunting than it really is.

It is only 50 miles (only 50 when compared to the 100), and only 3100m of ascent, and back in September it seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to consider entering. And besides, it was filling up fast, so if we wanted to do it, we had to commit. So we entered, and then had 10 months to worry about it, and even do a wee bit of training.

Training didn't really go well. My partner in all things, A, had been injured since the Swaledale marathon in early June, and was just beginning to run again. After a horrible experience in the heat at the Windermere marathon, and then an enjoyable Swaledale marathon, I had pretty much abandoned running. Without A's encouragement, and the bike and wetsuit competing for my attention I had done as little running as the injured A.

Still, we had 10 months, so that was OK.

Then it was the new year and only 6 months to go, but the winter seemed to have almost run it's course in a fairly benign way for once, so we would start serious training in the spring. Then of course the snow came, later and heavier than I can remember it, and by the time of a slightly shortened (25 miles) and rerouted Allendale Challenge (on April 6th) we still hadn't really started any serious training. In June we ran the Swaledale Marathon (23 miles) reasonably comfortably on a warm day, and completed an official recce of the Lakeland 50 route from Pooley Bridge to Ambleside on a wet and windy day.

Then we had a heat wave, a couple of long hard walk / run days in the Lake District, a reasonable amount of cycling (including a 100Km sportive on the tandem), and an unofficial recce of the remaining part of the Lakeland 50 route from Ambleside to Coniston. This final recce was less successful than the earlier recce. With the combination of the logistics of bus travel to the start from Coniston and the car journey from home, we finally started this at midday on one of the hottest days of the year. While it was beautiful, it was also very, very hot, and we struggled. The result was that although we got to see the route, our confidence was seriously dinted.

We did do a bit more training than that, but I think we only managed one month between September and June with more than 100 miles in the month. Definitely lower volume than we had intended; and the longest run was barely 30 (very hilly) miles.

When the Lakeland 50 finally came around, we set off in the car to Coniston with a sense of trepidation bordering on dread. But at least the weather forecast looked OK...